The Abbott government will have to rely on the Palmer United Party to pass its legislative agenda following the weekend re-run of the Western ­Australia Senate election which resulted in the PUP gaining a third Senate slot and the Liberals at risk of losing a Senate seat.

The entrenching of the influence of Clive Palmer’s political party came in an election which saw big swings of around 5 percentage points against both major parties, as voters lodged protest votes which resulted in a swing to the Greens of 6.4 per cent and almost 7.5 per cent to the PUP.

The Liberals have so far won quotas for two seats and Labor one seat, with one seat still to be decided between the two major parties.

The results confirmed Greens’ ­senator Scott Ludlam’s election on September 13 and gives PUP an extra senate seat after July 1 to be held by senator-elect Zhenya Wang.

The Australian Sports Party’s Wayne Dropulich, who won the fifth seat in the September poll, won only 3725 first preference votes in Saturday’s contest.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott played down the swing against his government in the poll, saying voters still opted for parties that wanted to get rid of the carbon and mining taxes.

But Opposition Leader Bill Shorten says both the Coalition and Labor ­suffered hits as a result of voter ­frustration with being forced back to the polls after a bungled count in the state at the September 7 federal election.

Strategists on both sides of politics characterised the election as a classic protest vote, though in this case one where Coalition voters protested by voting for the PUP while Labor voters shifted to the Greens.

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The result was a particularly low primary vote for Labor of just 21.76 per cent after the counting of 90 per cent of polling places.

A voting alliance negotiated last October between the PUP and the Motoring Enthusiast Party means Palmer will control a crucial bloc of four votes which the Coalition will always need to pass its legislation.

The expectation has been for some time that the PUP and most independents in the new Senate will support the repeal of the mining tax and carbon legislation, but the WA result leaves a big question mark over the negotiation of future bills. In Tokyo for free trade talks, Abbott said on Sunday: “It’s a typical byelection result." He dismissed any suggestions there was a softening mood among voters against the carbon tax.

“You get a pretty broad range of candidates and a very broad range of voting in a byelection. What we can be certain of is that candidates who are against the carbon tax and who are against the mining tax have performed very strongly," he says.

But Shorten says the result was “certainly no endorsement of the Liberals’ cuts to jobs, health and education".

The ABC’s election computer is predicting the final seat will go to the Liberal Party but Labor remains hopeful that counting of “below the line" votes – if they follow patterns in the September election – could secure it a second seat.

“Our goal was always to have two Labor senators elected to stand up for WA in Canberra," Shorten says.

“There is a lot of counting to go and we’re extremely hopeful Louise Pratt [a serving senator who holds the No. 2 spot on the ALP ticket] will be re-elected".

Final seat in the balance

Labor winning a second seat could mean the Coalition would be less confident of passing legislation even with the full support of the PUP and conservative-aligned independents.

The September 7 election result meant that the Abbott government could pass legislation with the support of six independents without PUP.

But whether or not the Coalition eventually ends up with two or three WA Senate seats, it will need the three votes of the Palmer United Party to reach the 39 votes it needs to pass legislation in the 76-seat Senate.

Equally, the prospects for Labor and the Greens blocking legislation may increase if the ALP, rather than the government, wins the final Senate spot, as they would only be two votes short of the 38 votes needed to block a bill.

On the eve of the election, Abbott’s final message was that the only way to assure the abolition of the carbon tax was to vote Coalition because others, such as Palmer’s party, could not be trusted.

But Abbott claimed on Sunday the poll result was still an overwhelming vote against the carbon tax.

“I certainly expect the senate on July 1 to respect the government’s ­mandate," he says.

Abbott says the government’s commitment to abolish the carbon tax was stronger or outranked even his commitment to balance the budget or stop the boats.

While the PUP is expected to support the repeal of the mining and carbon tax, Palmer has been very critical of the government on other issues, while the Prime Minister last week accused Palmer of trying to “buy votes".

Deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop played down the differences on Sunday saying the government had a “good opportunity" to negotiate with Palmer.

“I get on very well with Clive Palmer," she told the ABC’s Insiders program.

“I have had chats with Clive in the past. He is very entertaining as we saw in WA during the campaign. He can sing and he can dance.

“In a campaign, of course, parties have a go at each other – they are trying to win votes – and some things were said by Clive Palmer, some things were said by our side of politics, but at the end of the day we are there to serve the Australian people."

The rerun of the WA Senate election was made necessary after almost 1400 votes went missing during a recount in the September federal election.

Ludlam told the ABC on Saturday night that PUP leader, Palmer, had “bought himself a seat", while the Greens had run the “most motivated, grassroots, face-to-face, campaign" he’d seen.